“No, it’s not,” Fate said. “Meru is . . . damaged.” He sounded pained to admit it.
“Damaged, how?” My gut sank rapidly at the thought. If Meru was damaged, my siblings . . . no. I wouldn’t think about that. My runes were strong. They would hold.
They had to hold.
“The mountain has cracked. The land is rife with Destruction. The skies twirl in an endless storm. Even I cannot fix it or control it.” There was anger in his voice, which I expected. But what chilled my soul was the stark fear that Fate tried to mask so well.
If Fate was afraid, then the fate of Elyria could very well be on a path that wasn’t salvageable.
“Solace?” I asked, terrified of his answer. “Kaos?”
My questions were met with silence, and I wondered if our connection was severed.
“Gone,” was his terse reply.
“How?” My question was a broken whisper. I was angry at Fate for ignoring my pleas for help these past few months, but that anger was quickly pushed aside in light of this new information. My siblings were free in Elyria once more, more powerful than when they last left.
My blood ran cold.
“How?” I repeated, my voice colder and harder than it’d ever been when speaking to Fate.
“I couldn’t get to her in time. Couldn’t direct her down a different path. She did it. Destroyed your runes. Released the gods.” Fate was rambling and not making much sense.
“Who? Who released them, Fate?” An urgency pressed through my tone as I felt our connection strum and falter.
He was still rambling, either not hearing my desperate plea, or ignoring me once again.
“WHO?” I shouted into the void, but he didn’t answer.
“They’re coming, daughter.” Fate’s voice was urgent and hard. “I’ve sent one of my Children for you. You must get north, and quickly. Things are moving faster than even I could have put into place. Solace’s and Kaos’ return, while expected, came earlier than I predicted. It’s . . . thrown the universe out of balance. My Children are not ready, but they will be. Theymustbe. And I need you in the north to make that happen.”
Ah, so his concern was for his machinations andchosenChildren. Not for me, of course.
Minute cracks bit across my heart at the thought that I was really just a pawn to my all-powerful father.
“Very well,” I said. I felt, rather than saw, Fate nod his head.
“Good, Bondsmith.”
Our connection shook again, and I felt my soul being pulled back toward my body.
“Be safe, daughter,” I thought I heard Fate whisper, but my body was pulled from the in-between before I could confirm or deny it.
Returning from the cool and general freeness of the in-between to the stifling heat and my bruised, entrapped body was a sickening feeling, and I dry heaved at the warring sensations.
My body was wracked with tremors from the aftereffects of communicating with Fate, and I leaned my head back against the wooden pole. It put a different kind of pressure on my hands and shoulders, but I couldn’t find it within me to care.
Besides, if what Fate said was true, I had much bigger imminent issues than my sore and broken body.
I waited in that position for what felt like hours, straining to hear any kind of sound, to smell any change in the wind.
But there was nothing.
I began to think I hallucinated the whole conversation with Fate.
Then, all at once, it felt like sound exploded outside of my tent.
The whinny of horses and the squawk of chickens were coupled with shouts and the general incessant chatter of people. The crunching of sand under the pounding of feet as people scampered about rose above all other noises.
